Ahmed Hulusi Efendi

Ahmed Hulusi Efendi, born around 1833 in Amasya or Sivas, Ottoman Empire, and who died 17 January 1889 in Amasya, was an Ottoman Islamic scholar, jurist, judge and diplomat who completed his formal education in Amasya and Constantinople. He worked as a madrasa teacher, then served as a judge in the Aydos district of Istanbul from 1849, the Galata district from 1867 and Constantinople itself from 1874, later becoming chief judge of Anatolia and deputy judge of Diyarbakir in 1878. In 1869 he was one of fifteen jurists personally selected by Ahmed Cevdet Pasha for the commission that drafted the Mecelle, the Ottoman Empire's codification of Hanafi Islamic civil law, and he served on that commission through its completion in 1876, playing a leading role in drafting its thirteenth book, on matters of evidence and admissions. He also led the first official Ottoman diplomatic mission to Afghanistan in 1877 and 1878, and was the son of the Islamic scholar Ismail Sirajuddin Shirvani and brother of Sirvanli Mehmed Rusdi Pasha, who served as Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire.